Guitar mod ideas needed

[laxu]

I've had my Skervesen Shoggie 8 for a bunch of years now and it's great, but I've always felt that compared to my other guitars it could use more brightness on tap, and maybe do something more with the wiring. Sure, I can raise treble on my amp etc, that works, but I feel like maybe I could do that better on the guitar end.

I'm the type of player who likes to usually set the amp too bright, then roll off the tone knob and that just doesn't work as well on this one as it does on my other guitars. The 8-string also tends to need more treble to avoid getting muddy on the lowest strings.

It currently has:

• Neck pickup: Bareknuckle Pickups Mule
• Bridge pickup: Bareknuckle Pickups Juggernaut
• 3-way Gibson style switch for neck/both/bridge pickup.
• Volume. Push/pull for coil split.
• Tone. Push/pull for what Skervesen call "World Domination Mod" but it's really just a resistor and cap that makes it sound acoustic-ish, pretty cool sound for the middle position.

I've never been in love with the BKP Juggernaut, I find it can be quite picky about pickup height. But since these are custom slanted pickups, I can't easily replace it without buying a new custom slanted pickup from BKP. That gets really pricy, I calculated it would be probably close to 300 € for one fuckin' pickup with VAT.

I was thinking of trying 1M pots on this. I have some, but they are not push/pull so I'd lose the coil splits and WDM. That might help with the brightness already.

But then I started thinking about making the tone section a lot more useful. I was thinking of ditching the WDM and replacing it with a cap and resistor to make a preset bass cut switch. Which then lead me to think "Hey maybe I can buy an active preamp, cram a 9V battery in the cavity and put in concentric bass+treble tone knobs". Or maybe just a passive version of that similar to the G&L treble/bass cut knobs on my G&L Legacy.

Any ideas welcome. Goals: More treble range, bass cut features.

 

[newholland]

why not use an eq out front?

 

[laxu]

why not use an eq out front?

I could, but don't really want to. It's an extra pedal basically just for this guitar, and I'd like to have this sort of control from the guitar itself so I can just reach for a knob and turn it if I want a bit less bass, a bit more/less treble and so on. I have this sort of stuff on two of my guitars already, but this 8-string would be the best candidate for that.

 

[newholland]

I could, but don't really want to. It's an extra pedal basically just for this guitar, and I'd like to have this sort of control from the guitar itself so I can just reach for a knob and turn it if I want a bit less bass, a bit more/less treble and so on. I have this sort of stuff on two of my guitars already, but this 8-string would be the best candidate for that.

fair enough! what about just dropping pickups on the bass side?

 

[HomespunEffects]

You could try a capacitor in series with the pickup you want to brighten. It actually just cuts some low end but it can work.

I usually use that on a neck pickup that is too woofy to match the bridge pickup at the same volume.

 

[laxu]

fair enough! what about just dropping pickups on the bass side?

I do something like that already and it doesn't quite do the job. The Mule is generally fine set whatever, but the Juggernaut seems picky. It can quickly go too dull, too midrangy, too bassy just by adjusting the pickup a bit.

BKP describes its voicing as "more mids than bass/treble". It's also possible it would be best tamed with some midrange EQ instead. I need to pull out a parametric EQ and try stuff.

 

[newholland]

I do something like that already and it doesn't quite do the job. The Mule is generally fine set whatever, but the Juggernaut seems picky. It can quickly go too dull, too midrangy, too bassy just by adjusting the pickup a bit.

BKP describes its voicing as "more mids than bass/treble". It's also possible it would be best tamed with some midrange EQ instead. I need to pull out a parametric EQ and try stuff.

hhaha .. thats where i started i kid, natch! i always go the physical adjustment route first cause its.. well.. free, and it almost always ends up surprising me, even with a half turn on a pickup screw!

mebbe also, different strings? like go up a gauge or use a brighter set? anything over going TOO nuclear- not that 1 meg pots couldnt help- but its just kinda a big PITA!

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

@laxu Easy fix. Just put a carrot in your signal chain.

 

[LeftyLoungeLizard]

- A series/parallel switch for the humbuckers. Still bucks the hum while making things sound more "jangly" with somewhat lower output.
- A no-load tone pot with detent (Bourns has these)... for that "straight to the volume pot" tone; brighter.

 

[norminal]

- A no-load tone pot with detent (Bourns has these)... for that "straight to the volume pot" tone; brighter.

I was just about to suggest this.

 

[the-trooper]

@laxu Easy fix. Just put a carrot in your signal chain.

Can you do it with pickles?

 

[FuzzyAce]

You could try a concentric tone pot with passive lo/high-pass controls? 1M should be good, no lower than 500K though.

 

[laxu]

You could try a concentric tone pot with passive lo/high-pass controls? 1M should be good, no lower than 500K though.

Yeah that's been my number one idea, basically the G&L Treble/Bass cut circuit but on concentric pot. I tried googling for the right part but have a tough time finding 1M concentric pots. I could probably get by with 500K/500K if I can find one, but I know the bass cut won't work quite as well.

 

[Eagle]

It’s very difficult to give any advice on how the low strings on an 8 would behave because it’s more the rest of you rig and how it copes with those frequencies. If you use IRs I would actually start there.

 

[State of Epicicity]

A cap in series will do as you guys say, but, if you get the value low enough it will actually shift up the resonant peak to make it brighter. I found with my guitar that started to happen around 30 pF, but got really pronounced even lower than that! You can then put a resistor in parallel with that cap to tame the height of the peak if it's too much. Best of luck; it's a gorgeous guitar.